Tuesday, 18 October 2011
COYOTE MAN AND THE FOX WOMAN: Dec 2 - 4th.
Just a quick one this week - just back from a splendid and lively first weekend of the year programme. We seemed to catch the last of the sunlight with a mist coming down on sunday. And remember all attendees - the recommended reading between this session and Decembers is: Singing Story, Healing Drum: Shamans and Storytellers of Turkic Siberia (Kira Van Deusen - Mc Gill-Queen's University Press), Teachers of Myth: Interviews on educational and psychological uses of myth with adolescents (Maren Tonder Hansen -spring journal books).
We still have some spaces for the below, so please feast your eyes .....
Friday, December 2 at 7:00pm - December 4 at 4:00pm
Location
Blytheswood Hostel, Steps Bridge, Dunsford, Exeter, Devon EX6 7EQ
The Westcountry School of Myth presents the second weekend in its year long study of myth, initiation and wilderness. This time we jump into the rich and paradoxical area of the sacred trickster - through Raven bringing the light by stealing a luminous box from the Otherworld, to the birth of the storytelling god Hermes, to a Siberian woman who becomes a fox and can never go home, to the epic love story of Tristan and Isolde. Where do these extraordinary stories reside in the folds of our lives today?
The weekends promise a deep jump into the mythic world and the inner, whilst held tight in the mighty, mossy paw of Dartmoor. There are wood burning stoves, hot food, fellowship, laughter and depth, even the chance to tell a story or learn more about the art if so inclined. Why not come and find out what story you are living? Anyone welcome to begin the course at this stage, even if new to the school. E-mail
tina.schoolofmyth@yahoo.com today
I turn 40 next monday - the 24th - So i turn my head towards one of my deepest allies, old Dartmoor itself, to help me cross the threshold. The decade began in a black tent in a hidden valley - very rich indeed - but i feel filled with gratitude to all the friends i've made along the way. Many of these came through the road of the travelling myth-teller, but many also from just sitting still on Dartmoor and meeting all these inspirational characters that roll into the school. A special thanks to Chris, Jonny, Tina, Tim, Dave, Del, Rebeh, William, Scotty, Sue, Sam, and my good friend Lisa over in California, and Maggie and Luke. Please forgive my encroaching years if i have forgotten a name of anyone who has crewed for us, it's quite possible.
In the spirit of the 'I AM' Celtic poetic tradition (that students at the school put into practice) here is my own kind of variant of that as i approach a winter of following this myth-line of 2,000 yrs of story across Dartmoor (see last entry). For all students finding a piece of land to study for the duration of the programme (or longer) you may want to think of some kind of ritual greeting to it.
View from the Study
I am in the hut. Where language is a lovesick horse galloping inky mad across the bone- white page.
I am sometimes a bird - too often the skalded crow with blood-mouth, or the partridge, fat for deaths pot. My hobbled pedigree ruptures the brittle roof of reeds and eats stars, galloping down their ice language, their hope systems for the stranded hunter. As I gobble the sky I hurl light into soil.
The geese that flew for Parzival I love. The hawk that claimed three drops of their blood I love. The snow it fell to I love.
The hut is a kind of singing. It’s a loose gnotted story, my ramble-bag of low words, sweet feathery intensities. The floor is rutted Devon soil, ochre red, erotic dirt, good to stand upon in bare feet. The walls are big trees – Grimm’s trees, Russian, enormous Irish voyaging stories. The bark shines wet and dark, the roots are rough and deep. Where they hit soil all the flowers of Persia breathe. My fragile roof, patched so many times with my uprisings, threaded with an old woman’s hair, carries tribal rains that drip berry large onto the peaty fire. Water and flame.
The dust on Mirabai’s feet I love. The heavy horse alone in the orchard I love. The woman that lives at the edge of the world I love.
My grasses hum with beehive. I break chunks of honeycomb and offer them up to great Dartmoor. The hut shudders with foamy energy, reaching northwards to coax the rivers – the Tavy, the Plym, the Erme, the Avon, the Dart, and the Teign. I have shells from the green sea threaded in my belt, generous beer in a bronze cup for the spit-wind. I come in the old way. I leave a hollowed out hoof filled with apple-blossom on the turf, I haunch the dream path of the adder up to Hay Tor, Lucky Tor, Hound Tor, Benji Tor, Yal Tor.
The dry-stone wall I love. The moon over corn I love. Branwen of the white breast I love.
At forty years old I bend my head. I come in my fathers boots, and Alec’s, and Leonard’s, and Bryan’s. I carry dark bundles of my mothers hair, and Christine’s, and Monica’s, and Jennies. The blood holds Shaw, Gibson, Causer, Thackery. I come to walk the boundaries. I come to find a myth-line. The territory is the moor – once a desert, a tropical island, a red wood forest. So, shape-mover, what stories do you want to tell? What veins of charge ripple your flank? Where do I place my shoulder, ear and eye? My middle finger taps the tortoise shell that leads us home, I lace granite with whisky and milk. Within the stag’s bone there is a hawkish wine, in the glisten-steps of the morning hare lies the old singing.
Let the tusks of Dermot’s Boar get soaked in the wine of your education,
Let your milk heavy udders splash hot into our story-parched mouth,
Let the wild swan at dawn rise to meet Christ’s dark fire
I ask protection from the good power.
Let all stories hold, heal and nourish my small family. Let they be salmon and hazels for our mouths. Nothing but goodness – no envy, no meaness, no smallness.
Copyright Martin Shaw 2011
We still have some spaces for the below, so please feast your eyes .....
Friday, December 2 at 7:00pm - December 4 at 4:00pm
Location
Blytheswood Hostel, Steps Bridge, Dunsford, Exeter, Devon EX6 7EQ
The Westcountry School of Myth presents the second weekend in its year long study of myth, initiation and wilderness. This time we jump into the rich and paradoxical area of the sacred trickster - through Raven bringing the light by stealing a luminous box from the Otherworld, to the birth of the storytelling god Hermes, to a Siberian woman who becomes a fox and can never go home, to the epic love story of Tristan and Isolde. Where do these extraordinary stories reside in the folds of our lives today?
The weekends promise a deep jump into the mythic world and the inner, whilst held tight in the mighty, mossy paw of Dartmoor. There are wood burning stoves, hot food, fellowship, laughter and depth, even the chance to tell a story or learn more about the art if so inclined. Why not come and find out what story you are living? Anyone welcome to begin the course at this stage, even if new to the school. E-mail
tina.schoolofmyth@yahoo.com today
I turn 40 next monday - the 24th - So i turn my head towards one of my deepest allies, old Dartmoor itself, to help me cross the threshold. The decade began in a black tent in a hidden valley - very rich indeed - but i feel filled with gratitude to all the friends i've made along the way. Many of these came through the road of the travelling myth-teller, but many also from just sitting still on Dartmoor and meeting all these inspirational characters that roll into the school. A special thanks to Chris, Jonny, Tina, Tim, Dave, Del, Rebeh, William, Scotty, Sue, Sam, and my good friend Lisa over in California, and Maggie and Luke. Please forgive my encroaching years if i have forgotten a name of anyone who has crewed for us, it's quite possible.
In the spirit of the 'I AM' Celtic poetic tradition (that students at the school put into practice) here is my own kind of variant of that as i approach a winter of following this myth-line of 2,000 yrs of story across Dartmoor (see last entry). For all students finding a piece of land to study for the duration of the programme (or longer) you may want to think of some kind of ritual greeting to it.
View from the Study
I am in the hut. Where language is a lovesick horse galloping inky mad across the bone- white page.
I am sometimes a bird - too often the skalded crow with blood-mouth, or the partridge, fat for deaths pot. My hobbled pedigree ruptures the brittle roof of reeds and eats stars, galloping down their ice language, their hope systems for the stranded hunter. As I gobble the sky I hurl light into soil.
The geese that flew for Parzival I love. The hawk that claimed three drops of their blood I love. The snow it fell to I love.
The hut is a kind of singing. It’s a loose gnotted story, my ramble-bag of low words, sweet feathery intensities. The floor is rutted Devon soil, ochre red, erotic dirt, good to stand upon in bare feet. The walls are big trees – Grimm’s trees, Russian, enormous Irish voyaging stories. The bark shines wet and dark, the roots are rough and deep. Where they hit soil all the flowers of Persia breathe. My fragile roof, patched so many times with my uprisings, threaded with an old woman’s hair, carries tribal rains that drip berry large onto the peaty fire. Water and flame.
The dust on Mirabai’s feet I love. The heavy horse alone in the orchard I love. The woman that lives at the edge of the world I love.
My grasses hum with beehive. I break chunks of honeycomb and offer them up to great Dartmoor. The hut shudders with foamy energy, reaching northwards to coax the rivers – the Tavy, the Plym, the Erme, the Avon, the Dart, and the Teign. I have shells from the green sea threaded in my belt, generous beer in a bronze cup for the spit-wind. I come in the old way. I leave a hollowed out hoof filled with apple-blossom on the turf, I haunch the dream path of the adder up to Hay Tor, Lucky Tor, Hound Tor, Benji Tor, Yal Tor.
The dry-stone wall I love. The moon over corn I love. Branwen of the white breast I love.
At forty years old I bend my head. I come in my fathers boots, and Alec’s, and Leonard’s, and Bryan’s. I carry dark bundles of my mothers hair, and Christine’s, and Monica’s, and Jennies. The blood holds Shaw, Gibson, Causer, Thackery. I come to walk the boundaries. I come to find a myth-line. The territory is the moor – once a desert, a tropical island, a red wood forest. So, shape-mover, what stories do you want to tell? What veins of charge ripple your flank? Where do I place my shoulder, ear and eye? My middle finger taps the tortoise shell that leads us home, I lace granite with whisky and milk. Within the stag’s bone there is a hawkish wine, in the glisten-steps of the morning hare lies the old singing.
Let the tusks of Dermot’s Boar get soaked in the wine of your education,
Let your milk heavy udders splash hot into our story-parched mouth,
Let the wild swan at dawn rise to meet Christ’s dark fire
I ask protection from the good power.
Let all stories hold, heal and nourish my small family. Let they be salmon and hazels for our mouths. Nothing but goodness – no envy, no meaness, no smallness.
Copyright Martin Shaw 2011
Tuesday, 11 October 2011
THIS FRIDAY 8.PM, THE SHIP LEAVES FOR THE MYTH-SEAS
Just 3 days to the beginning of the year programme up at Heathercombe, residential centre on Dartmoor! Surely even as we speak you are packing sheep-skins to sit upon, Persian goblets from which to drink wine, parchment from which to draw images emerging from the story. Friday evening at 8pm (get there 7 for supper) the ship sets out onto the myth seas. Hope to see you at the harbour gates, just as night settles....we have never been told at the school before stories of queens with three drops of poison in their breast, hunters telling stories for the pelt of a black fox, faithful guides turned to stone, witches who keep a whip hidden underneath their pillow, one door that a father keeps locked to his son.....get in touch with Tina today!!!!at-
tina.schoolofmyth@yahoo.com
in a perfectly unashamed attempt to give you a taste of the school, i am dropping in an excerpt this week of a segment from a new book i am working on. I want to keep the main ideas under wraps for now - but i can say that it is a kind of myth-line of stories set across Dartmoor's great flank over about 2,000 years. A kind of local 'song-line' for those familiar with the aboriginal world. It's from the earliest story in the book - that of Brutus of Troy (Britain is named after him). Brutus has set sail for adventure, but with a troubled heart. ...come find us this weekend for more of the story!
Brutus and the Woman with the Moon in her Hair
Many seas came to meet him – the salt wall of the storm, the flat blue when no breeze creeps the sail, the jaunty push of the curling wave. All was an education in water. Silence he knew about. The ship was magnificent, two sheafs of oars on either side that almost skimmed the waves. A hundred men, fifty on each side, rowed hard. Their boy leader always gazed ahead – crow like in his focus, but golden in aura. Inside is a storm however, inside is a storm.
After a time they found themselves led by a swift wind to a deserted island. The men contented themselves by feasting and resting on the pearl white beaches, whilst Brutus wandered in past the tree line.
He came to the ruins of an old temple. It could have been a temple for Artemis, or Diana, or some great mistress of the Hunt who’s name is kept safe by badgers. Having been steeped in ritual etiquette, Brutus wasted no time. At the ivy clad entrance he lit three fires, then caught and sacrificed a white hart. He mingled its blood with wine and poured his offering onto the broken altar. The emerald glade protected Brutus from the harsh sun as he muttered his heart felt prayers for guidance. Afterwards he skinned the deer, lay on its white skin and fell into a visionary rest.
Soon a sweet breeze came through the boughs of the green wood. A young woman stood before him, small birds of dazzling colour hummed around her shoulders, the new moon was in her hair and she carried a sceptre with the morning star shining at its very point. On her back was an ornate bow and quiver of ebony coloured arrows, each with a differing star constellation carved delicately onto its stem.
When she spoke her breath was like honeysuckle and her tone strong but calm. She told him of an Island, far to the west, over nine waves. She spoke of it as a place where he would reign and establish a culture.
It was a place of bee and boar, great endlessly stretching oak forest, its western tip heavy with apples, its northern point sprinkled white with hoare-frost. It was always ancient, always a dream of a lonely god, always a ground for lovers to get lost in. Its land was not threadbare with human hand, the burgundy soil remained un-toiled, trees bent forward to share their fruit.
The river water alone was fit for the goblet of a queen, the sows udders was rich with milk, gold glittered in shingle, the stream was fat with pike. She spoke of a place where you could hunt for a thousand years with hawk, horse and hound and not dint the wild harvest. The stag would cross the lonely loch for a hunter who sang at dusk. In spring the meadows were ablaze with wild flower, like cups of honey. In winter the forest gave its seasoned timber to fires that never went out. In that snowy time the cup warmed with mead, belly filled with smoked meats and the tongue uncurled all the stories that bound weather, tribe and place together.
For the roe-deer there was the succulent tip of hazel shoots to nibble on, for fallow deer the ash, elm and hawthorn. Even the rook sang love songs to the worm – their gutterbrawl caw was somehow sweeter on this island. It becomes an incant, a hedgerow ballad, a raised lament. The animals powers were hot here, around, charged.
The young woman had sisters and brothers there. Divinities. Arianrhod – owl faced, ebony skinned, hair like a corn flood. Spider webs pour from her hands as she decides fates webs in our lives, ivy flanks her thighs and rump. She can forgive, and she can be Holy Terror. Cernunnos, moon-lover, horned radiance, dweller of the grove, strong-loined seed giver.
Utterly beloved by the people.
In a land like that, men eyes were firm and untroubled, in a land like that a woman’s mind arched out a hundred miles and knew she a hawk, or a defender of the waterfall. And the name? The name was Albion.
Copyright Martin Shaw 2011
tina.schoolofmyth@yahoo.com
in a perfectly unashamed attempt to give you a taste of the school, i am dropping in an excerpt this week of a segment from a new book i am working on. I want to keep the main ideas under wraps for now - but i can say that it is a kind of myth-line of stories set across Dartmoor's great flank over about 2,000 years. A kind of local 'song-line' for those familiar with the aboriginal world. It's from the earliest story in the book - that of Brutus of Troy (Britain is named after him). Brutus has set sail for adventure, but with a troubled heart. ...come find us this weekend for more of the story!
Brutus and the Woman with the Moon in her Hair
Many seas came to meet him – the salt wall of the storm, the flat blue when no breeze creeps the sail, the jaunty push of the curling wave. All was an education in water. Silence he knew about. The ship was magnificent, two sheafs of oars on either side that almost skimmed the waves. A hundred men, fifty on each side, rowed hard. Their boy leader always gazed ahead – crow like in his focus, but golden in aura. Inside is a storm however, inside is a storm.
After a time they found themselves led by a swift wind to a deserted island. The men contented themselves by feasting and resting on the pearl white beaches, whilst Brutus wandered in past the tree line.
He came to the ruins of an old temple. It could have been a temple for Artemis, or Diana, or some great mistress of the Hunt who’s name is kept safe by badgers. Having been steeped in ritual etiquette, Brutus wasted no time. At the ivy clad entrance he lit three fires, then caught and sacrificed a white hart. He mingled its blood with wine and poured his offering onto the broken altar. The emerald glade protected Brutus from the harsh sun as he muttered his heart felt prayers for guidance. Afterwards he skinned the deer, lay on its white skin and fell into a visionary rest.
Soon a sweet breeze came through the boughs of the green wood. A young woman stood before him, small birds of dazzling colour hummed around her shoulders, the new moon was in her hair and she carried a sceptre with the morning star shining at its very point. On her back was an ornate bow and quiver of ebony coloured arrows, each with a differing star constellation carved delicately onto its stem.
When she spoke her breath was like honeysuckle and her tone strong but calm. She told him of an Island, far to the west, over nine waves. She spoke of it as a place where he would reign and establish a culture.
It was a place of bee and boar, great endlessly stretching oak forest, its western tip heavy with apples, its northern point sprinkled white with hoare-frost. It was always ancient, always a dream of a lonely god, always a ground for lovers to get lost in. Its land was not threadbare with human hand, the burgundy soil remained un-toiled, trees bent forward to share their fruit.
The river water alone was fit for the goblet of a queen, the sows udders was rich with milk, gold glittered in shingle, the stream was fat with pike. She spoke of a place where you could hunt for a thousand years with hawk, horse and hound and not dint the wild harvest. The stag would cross the lonely loch for a hunter who sang at dusk. In spring the meadows were ablaze with wild flower, like cups of honey. In winter the forest gave its seasoned timber to fires that never went out. In that snowy time the cup warmed with mead, belly filled with smoked meats and the tongue uncurled all the stories that bound weather, tribe and place together.
For the roe-deer there was the succulent tip of hazel shoots to nibble on, for fallow deer the ash, elm and hawthorn. Even the rook sang love songs to the worm – their gutterbrawl caw was somehow sweeter on this island. It becomes an incant, a hedgerow ballad, a raised lament. The animals powers were hot here, around, charged.
The young woman had sisters and brothers there. Divinities. Arianrhod – owl faced, ebony skinned, hair like a corn flood. Spider webs pour from her hands as she decides fates webs in our lives, ivy flanks her thighs and rump. She can forgive, and she can be Holy Terror. Cernunnos, moon-lover, horned radiance, dweller of the grove, strong-loined seed giver.
Utterly beloved by the people.
In a land like that, men eyes were firm and untroubled, in a land like that a woman’s mind arched out a hundred miles and knew she a hawk, or a defender of the waterfall. And the name? The name was Albion.
Copyright Martin Shaw 2011
Thursday, 29 September 2011
Tuesday, 27 September 2011
Well the train finally landed me in deepest Devon earlier today - after a commute from San Francisco to New York to Heathrow to Paddington to Newton Abbot - whilst carrying a full bag of 27 books and luggage. All is green and red and moist and the lanes are misty and the air is scented like a taste of heaven. Autumn.
So the turn inward begins - the Cinderbiting time. I had a last burst of sunshine by spending an intensely busy weekend in California's Indian Summer, teaching at Dominican and Sonoma State universities, alongside a wonderful night presenting 'The Culture of Wildness' for the Numina Center (thanks especially friends Jon and Liza). Jon Jackson also hosted me for a very rich two hours on his 'Sound Mind' radio show - expect archive link soon. Friday night was a packed house in Point Reyes for an evening that included my dear friend Daniel Deardorff. We then all headed off to the wilds for the final weekend of the myth and wilderness course - 30 students strong plus supporting crew. I will remember it for a long time, and especially the guts and heart of one Lisa Doron who put a huge amount in to making it happen. So anyone involved with setting these events up (including radio)- THANK YOU.
High points involved tending a fire for six days up in the yurt by Lake Sturgeon Minnesota as fall settled in, being presented with a bottle of Lagavulin sixteen year old single malt by the side of a hot Californian road (you know who you are!) and delivered with proper bardic incant, flying over Manhattan at dusk just over from LEE SCRATCH PERRY - who was resplendent in glass covered pyth helmet, enormous badges and blood red beard. And the hundreds of new faces and opinions and blessings encountered.
I made a new friend during the trip (of several), Jacob Needleman (Jacob Needleman (b. October 6, 1934 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American philosopher and best selling author. He is professor of philosophy at San Francisco State University. He has published many books, some of which draw from G. I. Gurdjieff.) Jacob and i spoke for an hour on 'POINT REYES DIALOGUES' -his radio show on philosophy and the the soul, which really was a delight. A great connection.
As soon as it is on air (next week)i will set up a link on the main page of www.schoolofmyth.com . I am hopeful we will work together again.
I strongly suggest reading him, a very bright, deep and unpretentious thinker. I promised students that have just finished the first year a fall/winter reading list - here it is. Some old, some new.
CINDERBITER AUTUMN READING LIST
Everywhere Being is Dancing - Robert Bringhurst
Towards Psychologies of Liberation - Mary Watkins and Helene Shulman
Hafiz and the Religion of Love in Classical Persian Poetry - Edited Leonard Lewisohn
From Scythia to Camelot - C. Scott Littleton, Linda A. Malcor.
Savage Girls and Wild Boys: A History of Feral Children - Michael Newton
The Achievement of Ted Hughes - Edited Keith Sagar
Soil and Soul: People vrs Corporate Power - Alastair McIntosh
Robert Bly In This World - Edited Thomas R. Smith
Medieval Dream Poetry - A.C. Spearing
Singing Story, Healing Drum: Shamans and Storytellers of Turkic Siberia - Kira Van Deusen
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - Translation Simon Armitage
That should get you through till christmas if read well. get a Cinderbiter group together and bring books you love to the pub and the roaring fire. Get an old harris tweed with pockets full of hipflasks and chorizo and mayan gold. See last autumns post for all the skinny on the Cinderbiters - the School of Myth wild readers group.
SIGN UP TODAY FOR NEXT UK YEAR PROGRAMME! BEGINS IN LESS THAN A MONTH - CONTACT TINA OVER AT
WWW.SCHOOLOFMYTH.COM
A new essay piece on the issue of shame - working with the old Knightly notion of 'never lose your sense of shame!' - a controversial idea in modern times. Expect a reference or two to Parzival as it's coming from that wider work.
Shame’s Rough Music
The old belief is that a shame culture keeps us in check by claiming “ we have our eyes on you! We see what you do, so behave!” (a society of curtain-twitchers), which then develops into a guilt culture; when you have internalised that pressure so successfully that you no longer need external forces to create that behaviour, so you carry that accountability within yourself.
There is an old British shaming tradition, known all over the isle as ‘Rough Music’. In specific areas it was also called Sherriking, Riding the Stang, Stag Hunting. If an affair was going in the village, a case of suspected incest, wife or husband abuse taking place, then a mob would gather outside the homestead bashing tin pots or iron sheets; anything that made an infernal racket. It was often reserved for suspicions of a sexual nature. The suspects would literally be drummed out of the district. For wife beaters, a bag of chaff was laid on the door leading up to the house. Chaff comes from the thrashing of corn, hence the implication.
Some commentaries on Rough Music imply that it arises from the old pagan belief (at the heart of this story) that when relationship fails between two people then the crop struggles, animals die, and the land withers. It’s a protective warding off. George Ewart Evans reminds us of the story of an old Swiss tradition where a farmer and his wife would lie in the ploughed furrows of the field and make love, to ensure that the seeds would sink deep into the fertile earth.
The root of shame lies in sudden unexpected exposure. We stand revealed as lesser, painfully diminished in our own eyes and the eyes of others as well. Such a loss of face is inherent to shame. Binding self-consciousness along with deepening self-doubt follow quickly…Shame is without parallel a sickness of the soul. (Kaufman 1980 :11)
The psychologist Gershen Kaufman tells the story of Maggie, a young woman returning home late one night, whilst her parents have been up worrying about her. In the middle of a conversation with her mother her father appears with a pair of scissors and cuts her long hair off. This is a horrendous image. There is also a tie into Herzaloydes’s ‘fooling’ of the son. The difference is Parzivals naivete, he does not at first experience the shame, but Maggie is a young women living in a secular world, she knows full well the implication of the haircutting. Young buds of sexuality, connections to roots of trees, ruddy follicles on the back of the roe buck, fragments of stars all live within her hair. And in one fell swoop of panic, the father attempts to eradicate all relationship, all grounding to that ecstatic world for the daughter.
In my final year at secondary school the headmaster insisted my own hair was cut a total of seven times, as a signal to younger pupils not to attempt the grandiosity of growing their hair. So I was now a mascot for shame, his rules imprinted over my own for all the world to see. Shame inflicted publicly often has a particularly deep resonance.
My own experience was one of profound diminishment, I could barely make eye contact or raise my head to look forward for some time afterward. This was, of course, gradually replaced by a kind of lunatic optimism and hysterical cheeriness. However, It does not take much for an echo of that experience to ‘seemingly’ recreate itself , and the old facial tics of shame return. I somehow seek it out.
There is a cautious arc of trust that exists between us and the deeper friendships we develop, but with that trust comes vulnerability. When that trust is seemingly betrayed, we experience what Kaufman call’s “the breaking of the interpersonal bridge” – we feel isolated, impudent, melancholic – who were we to think we ever deserved friendship anyway?
There is also the possibility of an addiction to shame.
Ghastly as it sounds, it is possible to be drawn into a toxic, addictive shame. We actually engender situations that inflame the old patterns. We are so familiar with the emotions we enter when shamed – it gradually dictates our whole word view – that it becomes a macabre confirmation of the social standing we have elected for ourselves. It becomes a form of hiding. In old Norse stories we have the image of the Cinderbiter – one who lies hidden in the ashes of a fire. Whilst these stories have many positive associations for that role, in this instance it is worth asking; what are my ashes that hide me from the world? What shame keeps me from emerging? For many of us addiction to all that glorious food – which then becomes layers of fat – becomes a way of staying hidden in the ashes.
At the same time, Lewis Hyde (Hyde 1998 :187) reminds us that the Greek term for shame is Aidos, a word that contains wider associations of reverence and modesty. To lack Aidos is to take a chainsaw to an old oak grove, to snub an invitation to Odin’s feast, to leave the venue as Neruda reads. It means no sense of the vertical road, no awareness of the rugged powers that infuse the tusk of the boar. Ultimately it gives permission for the most extraordinary abuse of the earth’s resources.
Martin Shaw Copyright 2011
So the turn inward begins - the Cinderbiting time. I had a last burst of sunshine by spending an intensely busy weekend in California's Indian Summer, teaching at Dominican and Sonoma State universities, alongside a wonderful night presenting 'The Culture of Wildness' for the Numina Center (thanks especially friends Jon and Liza). Jon Jackson also hosted me for a very rich two hours on his 'Sound Mind' radio show - expect archive link soon. Friday night was a packed house in Point Reyes for an evening that included my dear friend Daniel Deardorff. We then all headed off to the wilds for the final weekend of the myth and wilderness course - 30 students strong plus supporting crew. I will remember it for a long time, and especially the guts and heart of one Lisa Doron who put a huge amount in to making it happen. So anyone involved with setting these events up (including radio)- THANK YOU.
High points involved tending a fire for six days up in the yurt by Lake Sturgeon Minnesota as fall settled in, being presented with a bottle of Lagavulin sixteen year old single malt by the side of a hot Californian road (you know who you are!) and delivered with proper bardic incant, flying over Manhattan at dusk just over from LEE SCRATCH PERRY - who was resplendent in glass covered pyth helmet, enormous badges and blood red beard. And the hundreds of new faces and opinions and blessings encountered.
I made a new friend during the trip (of several), Jacob Needleman (Jacob Needleman (b. October 6, 1934 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American philosopher and best selling author. He is professor of philosophy at San Francisco State University. He has published many books, some of which draw from G. I. Gurdjieff.) Jacob and i spoke for an hour on 'POINT REYES DIALOGUES' -his radio show on philosophy and the the soul, which really was a delight. A great connection.
As soon as it is on air (next week)i will set up a link on the main page of www.schoolofmyth.com . I am hopeful we will work together again.
I strongly suggest reading him, a very bright, deep and unpretentious thinker. I promised students that have just finished the first year a fall/winter reading list - here it is. Some old, some new.
CINDERBITER AUTUMN READING LIST
Everywhere Being is Dancing - Robert Bringhurst
Towards Psychologies of Liberation - Mary Watkins and Helene Shulman
Hafiz and the Religion of Love in Classical Persian Poetry - Edited Leonard Lewisohn
From Scythia to Camelot - C. Scott Littleton, Linda A. Malcor.
Savage Girls and Wild Boys: A History of Feral Children - Michael Newton
The Achievement of Ted Hughes - Edited Keith Sagar
Soil and Soul: People vrs Corporate Power - Alastair McIntosh
Robert Bly In This World - Edited Thomas R. Smith
Medieval Dream Poetry - A.C. Spearing
Singing Story, Healing Drum: Shamans and Storytellers of Turkic Siberia - Kira Van Deusen
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - Translation Simon Armitage
That should get you through till christmas if read well. get a Cinderbiter group together and bring books you love to the pub and the roaring fire. Get an old harris tweed with pockets full of hipflasks and chorizo and mayan gold. See last autumns post for all the skinny on the Cinderbiters - the School of Myth wild readers group.
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A new essay piece on the issue of shame - working with the old Knightly notion of 'never lose your sense of shame!' - a controversial idea in modern times. Expect a reference or two to Parzival as it's coming from that wider work.
Shame’s Rough Music
The old belief is that a shame culture keeps us in check by claiming “ we have our eyes on you! We see what you do, so behave!” (a society of curtain-twitchers), which then develops into a guilt culture; when you have internalised that pressure so successfully that you no longer need external forces to create that behaviour, so you carry that accountability within yourself.
There is an old British shaming tradition, known all over the isle as ‘Rough Music’. In specific areas it was also called Sherriking, Riding the Stang, Stag Hunting. If an affair was going in the village, a case of suspected incest, wife or husband abuse taking place, then a mob would gather outside the homestead bashing tin pots or iron sheets; anything that made an infernal racket. It was often reserved for suspicions of a sexual nature. The suspects would literally be drummed out of the district. For wife beaters, a bag of chaff was laid on the door leading up to the house. Chaff comes from the thrashing of corn, hence the implication.
Some commentaries on Rough Music imply that it arises from the old pagan belief (at the heart of this story) that when relationship fails between two people then the crop struggles, animals die, and the land withers. It’s a protective warding off. George Ewart Evans reminds us of the story of an old Swiss tradition where a farmer and his wife would lie in the ploughed furrows of the field and make love, to ensure that the seeds would sink deep into the fertile earth.
The root of shame lies in sudden unexpected exposure. We stand revealed as lesser, painfully diminished in our own eyes and the eyes of others as well. Such a loss of face is inherent to shame. Binding self-consciousness along with deepening self-doubt follow quickly…Shame is without parallel a sickness of the soul. (Kaufman 1980 :11)
The psychologist Gershen Kaufman tells the story of Maggie, a young woman returning home late one night, whilst her parents have been up worrying about her. In the middle of a conversation with her mother her father appears with a pair of scissors and cuts her long hair off. This is a horrendous image. There is also a tie into Herzaloydes’s ‘fooling’ of the son. The difference is Parzivals naivete, he does not at first experience the shame, but Maggie is a young women living in a secular world, she knows full well the implication of the haircutting. Young buds of sexuality, connections to roots of trees, ruddy follicles on the back of the roe buck, fragments of stars all live within her hair. And in one fell swoop of panic, the father attempts to eradicate all relationship, all grounding to that ecstatic world for the daughter.
In my final year at secondary school the headmaster insisted my own hair was cut a total of seven times, as a signal to younger pupils not to attempt the grandiosity of growing their hair. So I was now a mascot for shame, his rules imprinted over my own for all the world to see. Shame inflicted publicly often has a particularly deep resonance.
My own experience was one of profound diminishment, I could barely make eye contact or raise my head to look forward for some time afterward. This was, of course, gradually replaced by a kind of lunatic optimism and hysterical cheeriness. However, It does not take much for an echo of that experience to ‘seemingly’ recreate itself , and the old facial tics of shame return. I somehow seek it out.
There is a cautious arc of trust that exists between us and the deeper friendships we develop, but with that trust comes vulnerability. When that trust is seemingly betrayed, we experience what Kaufman call’s “the breaking of the interpersonal bridge” – we feel isolated, impudent, melancholic – who were we to think we ever deserved friendship anyway?
There is also the possibility of an addiction to shame.
Ghastly as it sounds, it is possible to be drawn into a toxic, addictive shame. We actually engender situations that inflame the old patterns. We are so familiar with the emotions we enter when shamed – it gradually dictates our whole word view – that it becomes a macabre confirmation of the social standing we have elected for ourselves. It becomes a form of hiding. In old Norse stories we have the image of the Cinderbiter – one who lies hidden in the ashes of a fire. Whilst these stories have many positive associations for that role, in this instance it is worth asking; what are my ashes that hide me from the world? What shame keeps me from emerging? For many of us addiction to all that glorious food – which then becomes layers of fat – becomes a way of staying hidden in the ashes.
At the same time, Lewis Hyde (Hyde 1998 :187) reminds us that the Greek term for shame is Aidos, a word that contains wider associations of reverence and modesty. To lack Aidos is to take a chainsaw to an old oak grove, to snub an invitation to Odin’s feast, to leave the venue as Neruda reads. It means no sense of the vertical road, no awareness of the rugged powers that infuse the tusk of the boar. Ultimately it gives permission for the most extraordinary abuse of the earth’s resources.
Martin Shaw Copyright 2011
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